Savages and Other Neighbours

About the Author: Michael Chacko Daniels is a former community worker and clown who grew up in Mumbai and now lives in San Francisco. Writers Workshop, India, has published six of his books: Split in Two (poetry, 2004), Anything Out of Place Is Dirt (novel, 2004), That Damn Romantic Fool (novel, 2005), Morning in Santiniketan (haiku, 2010), The Mendonҫa Mystery and Other Stories (short stories, 2014) and The Flea-Driven Traveler & Fifty-One Senryu, Haiku, Haibun (poetry, 2016). He worked as a publisher and editor for four years each with the New River Free Press of Grand Rapids, Michigan, and as an assistant editor with The Asia Foundation, San Francisco. For sixteen years he worked with Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living. As a community worker, he has been actively involved in a variety of areas including the Jobs for Homeless Consortium of Alameda County which he helped establish in 1988 and look after through mid-2004. For five years he was a Volunteer In Service To America (VISTA).

Daniels is an alumnus of St. Michael’s High School, Wilson College, University of Bombay (Department of Economics) and holds a Master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

About the Book: Michael Chacko Daniels’ magnum opus after a long career of 40 years of writing looks at tensions between immigrant communities in the United States through the eyes of a newly arrived Indian family. It is set in the 1970s, yet will resonate with contemporary experiences in, and of, the United States. The book is written in Daniels’ characteristically but deceptively light style, covering the racism and capitalism that have often threatened the humanism of America.